DESPITE his near-constant presence on our screens since appearing in The Office, no one knows much about 37-year- old Martin Freeman. Including the actor himself.

After finding fame in 2001 playing Tim Canterbury, The Office’s sarcastic yet loveable dose of normality, Freeman has been in programmes such as The Robinsons, Boy Meets Girl and big-screen offerings Love Actually and Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

Yet it’s taken BBC genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? to separate fact from fiction and find out the true story behind the actor, from Aldershot, Hampshire.

In his episode, the last in the current series, Freeman researches his family tree, particularly his paternal side.

There are many blanks in that half of his family’s history, he explains. His dad died when he was 10 years old and his parents divorced some time before that.

"I’ve been interested in discovering more about my heritage for a few years now," says Martin. "There were certain things in my family history I had some idea about, but I wanted to discover more and see if they were true or false."

Martin started with his grandfather, Leonard Freeman, hoping to discover if there was any truth in the family story that he was shot while making a cup of tea at Dunkirk.

"I hoped we would cover my grandparents, and from watching the show previously I knew it was possibly to find out about great-grandparents and even further in some cases," says Martin.

"In my episode, we go back as far as my great-grandparents, Richard and Ada, and that was enough for me as I felt I had information.

"I was very surprised to find out they were both blind."

The shocks didn’t stop there.

During the research, Martin discovers six of his great- grandparents’ 12 children had died. Convinced their deaths couldn’t be explained by the era’s infant mortality rates, Martin visited a paediatric consultant to get his take on the children’s death certificates. As the story takes an unpredictable turn, he discovers a dark and hidden chapter of social history.

"I don’t think anyone looks into their family tree and expects it to come up smelling of roses," he adds. "I found people who I was very impressed with for overcoming issues in their lives and had shown tremendous strength of spirit and character. That all made me very proud.

"I might do more research in the future, but at the moment I am just letting it all sink in and adjusting to the reality of what I found out. It has given me a great back-story to my dad’s side of the family. In the course of two weeks, I went from knowing virtually nothing about my family history to knowing a lot."